Page 67 of A Trade of Blood

Seriv frowned. “Pardon? I mean, I’ll keep young Castus here, certainly…”

“No. I wish you to put Din in a cell here as well.”

I turned to her. “Ah. You what? Why?”

“Because you are plainly exhausted, boy,” she said. “And need sleep. You have yawned ceaselessly all morn, it is terribly fucking irritating! More, I wish you to be in the right place when hell comes calling for you. For it was one thing for you to lock up your sister’s friend—but now you’ve gone and done it to her husband-to-be, true?”

Chapter 18

The cot in Seriv’s cellswas one of the finer ones, he assured me—“We’ve dedicated cells for drunks,” he confided, “as they neither notice if they’ve pissed the bed or if the previous occupant has done so, and I shan’t put you there, sir”—and as I lay sprawled out, I decided I had slept in worse.

I watched the afternoon light filter through the barred windows and listened to Ippeas and Castus whispering, as they were jailed next door to each other. For a moment I engraved every word, yet then I decided it was the harmless muttering of young men anxiously sharing news, and I let sleep takeme.

I woke to the sound of a cell door opening. I peered out the bars of my own and saw Seriv leading Ippeas out; then there, down the hallway, another open door, revealing the processing room where Ana had interrogated him—and there, sitting at the table, was Fotia.

I nearly started at the sight of her. Her eyes were puffy from weeping, and her face was drawn and greatly wearied.

A thought echoed through my mind like a shot from a bombard:She loves him. She really does.

Fotia stood as Seriv led him into the chamber, her lined face suddenly alight with relief. Then the door was shut, and the scene was hidden fromme.

I stood in the shadowy jail cell. A strange thing, to realize how much living your loved ones do beyond your presence.

Then a whisper in the dark: “Are you any closer to ending this, Signum Kol?”

I opened my unlocked door and walked down to where Castus was jailed. He looked much the same as the night I’d interviewed him, yet somehow more drained, like a creature gutted and left hanging upon a hook.

“We’re catching up to them, sir,” I said to him. “So we’re closer.”

“But not close,” he murmured.

“We won’t know how close we are until we’ve caught them.”

“Them?”

I said nothing.

“You think there’s more than one?” he asked.

“We’ve reasons to think so. Do you know more?”

“No. My days before this are all happy bliss. A beam of sunshine, amid the gloom of so many deaths. Perhaps I should have been more suspicious of that. There’s no such thing as a good thing.”

The voices of Ippeas and Fotia rose in the chamber beyond, yet it sounded like reassurance, and affirmations of love.

“Well,” Castus said, sighing. “I hopethat’sa true good thing, yes?”

I said nothing.

“Is it true that Fo is your sister?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Must be strange, stumbling over her out here. Must have been a hard sister, too. I bet she tried to spit you like a boar occasionally, yes?”

“No,” I said stiffly. “We weren’t permitted to be together very often.”

“Oh.” He coughed. “Yes. She did say she had a…hard upbringing. Though I wonder now—is there any other kind?”